Monday, September 30, 2013

Here are the promised pictures from the doll house festival this past weekend at the Provo Library. The event is a fund raiser for the Utah County Children's Justice Center, an organization that helps with recovery and counseling of child victims of abuse.

The doll house festival is actually hosted by "Friends of the Utah County Children's Justice Center", and some wonderful friends they are.

This picture shows the layout of most of the room of dollhouses, there are about ten more behind me as I took this picture.

Including this single room sealed box, which I thought was absolutely charming. It is made on the smaller scale of doll houses, and I thought the details were just astonishing.

This Hobbit house was probably the award winner for the festival. The details are wonderful.

The hobbit house was put together by this lady, Colleen, and her family. She is, in fact, the person that introduced me to the Doll House festival in the first place. She is a regular at the antique mall, and every late summer, she comes looking for details for what ever doll house project she has in mind that year. (She is dressed for the masquerade ball that is held as the kick off for the festival.)

I went all three days ... the first to set up, the second to take my granddaughter Eva, to the left, and Afton, who is the granddaughter of my friend Ginny, who also got to go, for a super fun double grandma date.

The third, and last day, I went with four other members of We Can, my service group with whom I made the doll house we donated. Lunch finished up a perfect girl's day out!

And now, just for my friend Shirley ... the Haunted Doll House!!

The skeletons around the table dressed as jack.o.lanterns just made me giggle ... What a super fun day ... To the right you can see that I did my bit to buy goodies at the gift shop to add more money to the coffers of the Utah County Justice Center.

And just so you know, before leaving I had a chance to talk with the founder of the 'friends of the' UCCJC ... and she told me one of the most touching stories about a young woman who they worked with as an abused 12 year old, who, as a college student came recently and presented to the staff at an event and shared the difference that the center had made for her in putting abuse behind her and in building a normal life. She received a standing ovation! ... just hearing about it, I stood in the hallway with tears in my eyes. What a wonderful program, and what amazing people, who are willing to make a difference in the lives of others.﻿

Friday, September 27, 2013

Yep, its another fun project for charity ... and this charity actually breaks my heart ... its the Children's Justice Center, and they have a doll house festival every fall, along with a masquerade ball!

The money they make goes to help pay for counseling for children who have been abused. So sad, but such a great reason to raise money.Here the link for the whole festival, with more pictures, including lots of pictures of the haunted house.

This year our service group, We Can, agreed to help out by making a doll house. Such a fun project. I have shown you some close ups of each room.

The wall papers, and the kitchen floor are scrapbook papers that have been decoupaged in place.

The pictures on the walls and the clock in the kitchen are all from Graphics Fairy and are also decoupaged in place.

'We Can' paid for the doll house, Ardis bought some furniture on line to help furnish it, and Paulette helped by the cutting the papers to fit the walls.

I took it to the Provo Library and set it up on Thursday, and plan to go back with the We Can girls on Saturday. There are some other pretty awesome houses that I will share with you all next Monday.

Thanks for stopping by to check out this great cause. If you are local, the doll house festival at the Provo Library is open from 10 until 8 today (Friday) and will be open from 10 to 4 Saturday, the 28th. There is a gift shop full of craft goodies to purchase as well.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Welcome to my Downton Abbey Tea Party in honor of my friend Jenn who was visiting from Virginia ...

This is the 'help', my 'parlor maid' Becca, and my 'butler', Perkins.

The Menu

Crumpets with Clotted Cream, Marmalade and Lemon Curd

Chicken Salad Puffs

Ribbon Sandwiches

Various herb and fruit teas

Assorted 'biscuits'

Jenn, Ann and Robin got into the mood by dressing the part.

I tried to get everyone in the mood with a few English touches. I made the Downton Abbey banner in about an hour. Since I often spend hours and hours doing them, I was very happy with this quickie effort.

Instead of carefully taping antique book pages to sheets of printer paper, and sending them through my printer, one at a time to receive either a medallion, a letter or both ... I just found this great handwriting sample on Graphics Fairy, and printed off a trimmed version 2 to a page on card stock, cut them out, then punched the borders, and stamped a letter on each before gluing them onto a length of black garland and voila!

Michelle was also, luckily, in town from Arizona, and is shown here with Jenn and her mother Doreen to the right.

Here are Robin, Barb and Ann, all longtime friends.

Other decorating touches were to add a Lady Grantham plaque to an antique portrait, as well as printing off a picture of Lady Mary in her wedding dress and hanging it.

I already have a few tributes to our friends across the pond, like this lamp. I also have Busts of British Royalty, a few crowns and a lovely antique book with Queen Elizabeth's portrait on the cover.

Now we just have to wait for the new season to arrive so I can watch it on my 'big' screen TV ... although I must admit that I have already cheated and watched the first episode on line ... thanks Stacy!

The event started with some browsing through the booths set up by local antique and collectible dealers, and yes, there were some great deals.

Next Daniel Copper, shown above, the owner of the Star Mill Antique Shop told the wonderful history of the mill, including the fact that it burned down twice ... and was rebuilt.﻿

Of course the mention of ghosts is always fun this time of year ... such as the story of the little girl who wandered off down some stairs when her mother was shopping at the mill, who, when called back by her mother said "But I was going with the lady" ... another child turned and left the back room of the mill, saying to her mother that the apparently empty room had "too many people in it."

After the talk we got to wander all over the property, including the historic home of the miller, and several spaces that are normally closed to the public. I did find a lot of treasures to take home, as usual ... what fun!

It was especially fun seeing all the large gears, funnels, wheels, and cranks of the mill machinery, as Daniel had told us that when he was researching the mill, he was told by experts at the Smithsonian that it was one of only 10 complete 1800's mills still in existence, and the only one west of the Mississippi.

Here is my friend Christine, who manages the Utah Vintage Yard Sale site, she had some fun spooky Halloween décor for me to add to my dining room mantel. To the left is one of the food trucks where we got lunch ... mine was an ABC grilled cheese (Apple, Bacon and Cheddar) Yummy!!

My friend LaVern and I both had a great time ... note my van behind us in front of the mill, all ready for me to load the amazing antique door turned huge wall mirror that we stopped off and dropped at the Treasures Antiques on the way home.